SteelFusion

The first converged infrastructure solution purpose-built for the branch

Formerly Known As: Granite appliance(s)

Riverbed SteelFusion is the first and only branch converged infrastructure that delivers local performance, data centralization, instant recovery, and lower TCO. SteelFusion simplifies your branch IT footprint, converging your branch servers and storage into a single appliance while centralizing your data. Now you can store, backup, and manage your branch virtual servers, applications and data in the data center without sacrificing any of the benefits of running branch services locally for your users.

What is branch converged infrastructure?

The solution to inefficient branch infrastructure can be found in modern datacenters: converged infrastructure. Branch converged infrastructure builds on proven techniques pioneered by datacenter providers, but optimized for the unique requirements of the branch. The result is a single, standardized, pre-integrated stack that enables users to access applications running at high speed locally in the branch while primary data is stored in the datacenter.

Why SteelFusion for branch converged infrastructure?

“With SteelFusion, branch data is delivered encrypted from the datacenter at local speed, no matter the distance or location, and enables the restore of operations in a matter of minutes versus days, maintaining high productivity for branch staff.” – Searl Tate, Director of Engineering, Paul Hastings

SteelFusion is the first branch converged infrastructure that centralizes data in the datacenter and delivers local performance and instant recovery at the branch. SteelFusion fuses branch servers, storage, networking, and virtualization infrastructure into a single solution that reduces the average time to provision branch services by 30x (from five hours to ten minutes) and recovery from branch outages by 96x (from 24 hours to 15 minutes), according to Taneja Group.

Reduce branch IT costs and data loss risk

“SteelFusion lets us bring down the complexity of what the local IT resources need to manage, and allows us to focus our IT expertise where there is ample talent available.” – Rohit Tellis,Director of Information Technology, Alamos Gold

SteelFusion serves as the infrastructure for your branch, significantly lowering capital and operational costs, mitigating the risk of branch disasters, and improving IT’s responsiveness to the business.

Slash IT costs by eliminating the need to purchase, maintain, and backup servers in branch offices

Ensure business continuity and rapidly recover from disasters or interruptions

Reduce data loss with near real-time synchronization of data to the datacenter

Control data in the datacenter, removing sensitive information from high-risk locations

SteelFusion Core: A storage delivery controller in the datacenter that interfaces with your storage area network (SAN). This projects centralized data out to branches, eliminates branch backups, and provides instant provisioning and recovery of branch services.

SteelFusion serves as the infrastructure for your branch, significantly lowering capital and operational costs, mitigating the risk of branch disasters, and improving IT’s responsiveness to the business.

SteelFusion integrates three unique features that deliver new efficiency for your branch offices:

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BlockStream: Integrated storage delivery

BlockStream is our patented technology that centralizes data in the datacenter and projects a working set out to your branch. You have this possibility through the combination of three features: 1) An authoritative block cache built into the SteelFusion™ Edge converged appliance; 2) A pre-fetch algorithm that predicts and delivers required data from the datacenter SAN to branch locations; and 3) Data deduplication technology that reduces the amount of data transferred between Edge and Core

Steelhead: Built-in WAN optimization

SteelFusion contains an integrated instance of the industry’s #1 WAN optimization solution. WAN optimization helps further streamline your branch infrastructure by consolidating services back to your datacenter, and accelerating all your user traffic in the branch across the optimal networks at the lowest cost. Services that cannot be centralized are run as virtual machines (VMs) on the converged appliance.

Virtual Services Platform (VSP): Branch-optimized virtualization

The SteelFusion™ Edge converged appliance contains a fully integrated instance of the VMware vSphere hypervisor, optimized to run remotely on a hardened branch appliance. You benefit from having the industry-standard virtualization platform, which can be managed with existing tools and capabilities. SteelFusion seamlessly appears as a standard host in existing VMware vSphere and vCenter management tools.

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“With Riverbed, we got more than we thought we would, such as WAN optimization, which was not part of the initial consideration. We consolidated and we avoided the cost of additional bandwidth to the remote sites, which turned out to be another real win.”

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“SteelFusion has simplified my operations. Users at remote sites are happy because their data is better protected, performance is better and we aren’t asking them to help when there’s an IT problem. Also, the success with SteelFusion helped the IT department earn back trust, and gave me momentum to go after other projects.”

Achieve your goals with SteelFusion

How you can centralize backup of branch servers and data to the datacenter Learn how you can achieve continuous operations with instant branch recovery and disaster avoidance without sacrificing any of the benefits of having servers at the edge close to users – all at a lower TCO.Learn more >

How you can eliminate branch servers, storage, and backup infrastructureLearn how Riverbed helps you reduce infrastructure footprint at the branch to reduce capital and operational costs and simplify IT practices.Learn more >

How you can centralize backup of branch servers and data to the datacenterLearn how Riverbed helps you protect all of your data in your central datacenter where it is safe, reliable, and efficient.Learn more >

How you can get data out of high-risk placesLearn how to store, secure, and manage all of your data where it's safest, in your datacenter - while guaranteeing that your end users still get local performance, even during WAN outages.Learn more >

Determine Your ROI

SteelFusion accelerates access to your storage area networks (SANs) across the WAN, decoupling storage from servers and allowing your data to reside in one location yet be projected to your branch as if it were local.

With SteelFusion, you can reduce the complexity in your branch and eliminate cost and risk without compromising your user experience.

Riverbed delivers the most complete platform for Location-Independent Computing, turning location and distance into a competitive advantage. The Riverbed Application Performance Platform™ allows IT to have the flexibility to host applications and data in the most optimal locations while ensuring applications perform as expected, data is always available when needed, and performance issues are detected and fixed before end users notice. At more than $1 billion in annual revenue, Riverbed has 25,000+ customers, including 97% of both the Fortune 100 and the Forbes Global 100.